Leverage International: The Rapist Job
by Tamara Reuveni
Summary: In order to help a rape victim put her attacker behind bars, Leverage International takes on a job connected to Eliot's dark past and teams up with an old friend. Rated T for mild language and sexual content (nothing graphic). This is my first published fanfic, so please give me feedback.
1. Chapter 1

**Portland, Oregon**

**March, 2013**

Kate stepped out of the court house still in a daze. She couldn't understand how this had happened. They'd had evidence, DNA samples, solid proof. But Toby's lawyer had gotten up there and said basically, "It can't have been him because he's a good boy who would never do such a thing." And the jury had agreed. Had she fallen down the rabbit hole in the middle of the night? Yesterday she could have sworn that they were winning the case.

Toby and his father were at the bottom of the court house steps, talking to a crowd of reporters. "I'm just glad this is over," Toby was saying. "I want to forget it ever happened."

Fury rose in Kate, and she clenched her teeth. _I'll bet you do,_ she thought. _And you probably will. But I can't forget. Not as long as I see your face in my nightmares_. She wanted to run at him, kick him, punch him, make him feel some part of the pain he had caused her. But she knew that would only be childish. She wouldn't stoop to his level. So she gathered her courage and walked calmly past him, not even glancing at him.

The reporters, spotting a fresh angle, swooped down on her. Questions flew from a dozen directions.

"Are you going to appeal the verdict, Miss Ryan?"

"Do you concede that it's possible Tobias Jarret was not the man who attacked you?"

She tried to push past them, muttering "No comment," but they weren't so easily deterred. She began to feel trapped, suffocated. Tears stung her eyes. Through a gap in the press she glimpsed Toby smiling smugly at her, enjoying her panic. She broke and ran, almost knocking one reporter to the ground as she shoved him out of the way.

She bolted toward the bus stop. The bus was there, still boarding. She might make it. But the tears were blurring her vision, and she crashed in to a man coming the other way. They both lost their balance and toppled to the pavement. The shock stopped the tears immediately. For a moment Kate just lay there, dazed. The man recovered first. "Hey, you all right?" he asked in a gravelly voice with a faint but unmistakable southwestern accent.

She sat up carefully. Her left arm burned where she'd scraped in on the concrete, and her hip was bruised. "I think I'm okay," she said. "What about you? Did I hurt you?"

The man chuckled. "I've been through worse. I think I'll live."

"I'm so sorry," Kate said. "I wasn't looking where I was going." She glanced toward the bus stop. The bus was disappearing in to the traffic. "Damn," she muttered. "Now I'll have to wait half an hour for the next one." She looked toward the reporters. Some of them had left, but a few were hovering hopefully nearby. There was no way they'd leave her alone while she sat at the bus stop for thirty whole minutes with nothing to do.

The man followed her gaze and interpreted it correctly. "Ah. I see your problem," he said. "You know, I think I can help you. There's a bar around the corner that's owned by a friend of mine. You can hide out there until your bus comes."

That did sound like the perfect solution. "Thanks," Kate said, letting him help her to her feet. His hands were strong and calloused. She looked around nervously for Toby, but he was gone. She relaxed a little. "I'm Kate Ryan, by the way."

The man smiled. "Eliot Spencer."


	2. Chapter 2

The Bridgeport Brew Pub was a cozy place. The light was soft and golden, no glaring florescent strips, and the air smelled of beer, coffee, and a dozen kinds of comfort food. The staff greeted Eliot familiarly. He ordered a beer for himself. Kate got a coffee which Eliot insisted on paying for.

"If anything, I should be paying for you," she protested. "It's the least I can do after I bowled you over like that."

But he said, "The least you can do after bowling me over is give me the pleasure of buying a pretty girl a cup of coffee."

She blushed and relented. She really didn't have any money to spare anyway.

"Parker and Hardison are in the back room if you want them," the waitress who brought the coffee told Eliot.

Eliot raised an eyebrow. "What are they doing back there? There are no projects right now."

The girl shrugged. "I didn't ask. Although I did hear something about . . . pretzels? Do I want to know . . ." She caught the look on Eliot's face, and said, "Right. I don't want to know. Can I get you anything else?"

"No. Thank you, sweetheart."

From the smile the girl flashed, Kate could tell she carried a bit of a torch for Eliot, but what woman wouldn't. Handsome, strong, charming, and genuinely sweet. Hell, there was a time when she would have . . . but not anymore. That brought her thoughts back to the trial and Toby. She cast around for something to say to distract herself. "So, um . . . Eliot. That's not a very common name. I think the only other Eliot I've ever heard of was that kid in _E.T._" As soon as she said it she wanted to bite her tongue. What a lame, awkward way to start a conversation.

But he actually smiled. "Yeah. My friend Parker's always teasing me about it. It's her favorite movie. Mind you, I think it's the only movie she's ever watched all the way through. She even fell asleep in the middle of _The Shining_."

"Wow. Brave girl," Kate said. "This is Parker who's in the back room with Hardison doing something involving pretzels?'

"Yeah, um, no pretzels are actually involved," he said. "It's kind of a code word. Please don't ask me to explain. I wish I didn't know."

"I see. So who's Hardison?" she asked, grateful that the conversation was moving so smoothly. He was easy to talk to.

"Alec Hardison is the guy who owns this place."

"And you're old friends?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. We've known each other . . ." His eyes unfocused, and she could see him doing mental calculations. "Almost six years now," he said, sounding a little surprised.

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments, but it was a comfortable silence. Finally Eliot asked casually, "So why were those reporters chasing you? Did you steal government secrets or something?"

She laughed. "No, I . . ."

Seeing her hesitation, he said, "You don't have to tell me. You just met me, and if it's too personal."

"Actually, I want to tell someone," she said, only realizing as she said it how true it was. It had been a long, lonely few months. And although she had just met him, she instinctively trusted him. He reminded her vaguely of her father. He had that same quiet, reassuring warmth. "It was because of the trial," she said, looking down in to her coffee. "You might have heard about it. It's been pretty high profile. Tobias Jarret Jr., the son of the CEO of Jarret Security."

Suddenly, a shadow seemed to come over Eliot's face. "Yeah, I've heard about it," he said. "I'm . . . slightly acquainted with Mr. Jarret Sr." That surprised Kate, but before she could ask what kind of acquaintance, Eliot went on, "The kid was on trial for rape, wasn't . . ." She could almost hear the click as he put it together. "Oh," he said softly. "You were his victim."

Kate felt the tears threatening to spill again. "Not according to the court," she said bitterly. "I . . . I don't understand what happened. All the evidence was on our side. We had freaking DNA samples. All they had was a lawyer who was an old family friend and had known Toby since he was born. He didn't even try to logically refute my case. He just went on about what a good kid Toby was, how he'd lost his mother when he was a kid and that was why he'd gotten a little wild, but he would never really hurt anyone. It was bullshit. But then . . . then the jury found him innocent. It was like they hadn't even been listening." She was aware that she was growing hysterical. She took a deep calming breath.

"He must have bought the jury," Eliot said. "Or blackmailed them. Probably a little of both."

Kate looked at him in shock. "People can do that?"

"Rich, powerful people. Yes. And Tobias Jarret Sr. is about as rich and powerful as they come. It wouldn't be the first time he's done something like this. Have you considered appealing?"

She shook her head. "I'm three months behind on my rent. I've lost my job. I can barely afford to eat. Paying a lawyer is not a high priority. Besides, if he could rig the first case, he'll just rig the second."

"What was your job?" Eliot asked.

"I'm a music teacher." She managed a small smile. "Music is my passion. It's the only thing that's gotten me through this."

He smiled in return. "I know how that feels."

"You play an instrument?"

"Guitar. A buddy of mine in the army taught me, and it's gotten me through some . . . very bad times." Something in his face as he said that made her look at him in a new light. So he'd been a soldier. He must have his fair share of trauma. What sort of memories haunted _his_ dreams?

They fell silent again. Kate felt the helpless hopelessness of the situation weighing down on her. It had been stupid of her to think for a second that they would play fair. "So I guess that's that then," she said. "He's going to get off free, and he's probably just going to do it again to someone else. There really is no justice in the world. That's . . . that's really shitty to know, but thanks for listening. At least there are still a few good people around. I'm glad I crashed in to you."

He smiled, and then he looked as though he was thinking something over very hard. "Kate," he said, "what if I told you I could do more than listen? What if I said I could help you get justice?" He took a card from his pocket and handed it to her.

She read the plain black lettering aloud. "Leverage International. Eliot Spencer, director." Underneath was a cell phone number. She looked at him curiously. "What is this?"

"My company. This is what we do. When the system breaks down, when you're up against people who are so rich and powerful that the law can't touch them, we give you another option. We give you a little leverage. We can destroy Tobias Jarret for you. Destroy his assets and his reputation. We could send both the father and the son to jail."

She stared at him in disbelief. She really had fallen down the rabbit hole in the middle of the night. "You're serious. How?"

"Well, I won't lie to you. Our methods aren't completely legal. But then we've just established that the legal system doesn't work against people like this."

She had to agree with that. "I . . . I can't pay you."

"That's the best part. You don't pay. The person who hurt you pays. Tobias Jarret pays in more ways than one."

* * *

After Kate Ryan left to catch her bus, Eliot sat for a long time, staring at the dregs of beer in his glass and thinking. She'd said she needed time to consider his offer. He wasn't surprised. From her shock at the idea that Jarret could have rigged the trial, it was clear that she'd been brought up to have faith in the system. Even though the system had failed her, it was difficult to change a lifetime of belief. Eliot had plenty of experience with that. She'd taken the card and promised to call him with an answer in a few days.

He really didn't know what answer he was hoping for. He wanted very badly to help her. What Jarret Jr. had done to her was worse than murder. And if he was allowed to go free, she was right, he'd just do it again, and maybe his next victim wouldn't be as strong as Kate Ryan. Maybe she wouldn't have anything like Kate's music to help her come through the trauma with her sanity intact. Tobias Jarret needed to be put away. He needed to learn that the world wasn't his for the taking just because his mother was dead and his father was a bastard. But . . . Tobias Jarret. That was a door Eliot really didn't want to open.

The team was good about not poking in to his past. They knew that even though he might bring things up occasionally and even make jokes about it, (_"Ever notice how all bad guys know at least one stripper? Well, I'm a bad guy."_) there was a lot more that he never talked about. And they accepted that. Until it interfered with a job. He couldn't handle this one like he'd handled the Moreau job. He couldn't hold off on telling them the truth for even a minute. They'd forgiven him once, but he owed them more than that this time. They'd all learned the hard way that being a team meant trusting each other. No, if they went up against Jarret, he would have to tell them the exact circumstances of his previous association with the man.

So he was almost hoping that Kate Ryan chose to remain an honest citizen. Almost.


	3. Chapter 3

When Hardison and Parker finally came out of the back room giggling together, (_Definitely the metaphorical pretzels_, Eliot thought, _I hope,_) he told them they might have a client. He handed Hardison a napkin on which he'd scribbled the relevant details of his conversation with Kate while he waited. "She hasn't made up her mind yet," he said, "but there's no harm in being prepared. If we do this, we're going to have to move fast, and Jarret isn't the kind of guy you want to go up against half cocked."

"A napkin. Really, Eliot?" Hardison said disgustedly. "I got you that nice phone with the slide out keyboard. You could just as easily have typed this and it would be in my computer already. You know, I should make you enter it in to the computer yourself."

"I could make you learn to type with ten broken fingers," Eliot said. It was an empty threat, but so was Hardison's. He never let Eliot near his beloved computer unless the job required it. "Does the Black Book have anything on Jarret?"

Hardison sat down and pulled out his phone, muttering "A napkin. Live in the twenty first century, man. It's gonna take me hours to decipher your crappy handwriting."

"My handwriting is not crappy. It's neater than yours, Mr. Keyboard." Just then, Eliot's phone rang. He didn't recognize the number, so he answered with a cautious "Yeah?" instead of his usual curt "Spencer."

"Eliot?" The voice was panicked.

He tensed. "Kate? What's wrong?"

"Th-there was a man waiting in my ap-partment. I got away but he's following me. Eliot, I'm really scared."

Eliot felt cold terror. Damn. He should have seen that coming. Jarret wasn't the kind to leave loose ends lying around. He wanted this whole scandal laid to rest and forgotten, and the quickest way to do that was to get rid of Kate. Why had he let her go back to her apartment alone? If she died, it would be his fault.

"Eliot? Are you there?"

_Action now, self recrimination later, Spencer_. "Yes, I'm right here, darlin'. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do exactly what I tell you and you'll be fine." He knew it was most important that he keep her calm. If she broke and ran blindly, she'd be dead. Hardison and Parker were looking at him in confusion. Their expressions changed to alarm as he gave his instructions to Kate. "Find a crowded place, indoors, and stay away from any windows. Do not leave that place no matter what. Even if he follows you in, do not run. He won't hurt you in front of witnesses." _I hope_. "If he grabs you, scream as loud as you can and don't stop screaming. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes. I understand."

"Good. Now when you've found a place, tell me where it is and I'll come get you."

"Is . . . Is a McDonald's a good spot?"

"That's perfect. What street?"

"Seventeenth."

"Great. I'll be there in five minutes. Hardison," he growled, "give me the keys to Lucille. Don't you dare argue or I really will break your fingers."

"What?" Kate said. "Who's Lucille?"

Despite the gut churning fear, Eliot smiled. "Lucille's the car, honey. It's a long story. You just sit tight. You're doing great."

Hardison unprotestingly handed over the keys to his baby, and Eliot ran out of the pub.

"Eliot," Kate said as he raced toward the van parked at the curb. "Will you stay on the phone with me?"

"Of course I will," he said. "I won't put it down for a minute. It's going to be all right. Everything's going to be all right."

* * *

_Definitely some sort of rabbit hole_, Kate thought as she sat on the hard plastic bench, surrounded by laughing, chatting people, shaking and feeling sick to her stomach, her phone pressed to her ear. The soothing sound of Eliot's voice was the only thing keeping her from breaking down in tears. This was not the same world she had lived her whole life in.

As she'd ridden home on the bus, she had replayed her conversation with Eliot over and over in her mind. So the world was even more screwed up and unfair than she'd ever imagined, and rich people could hurt whoever they liked and never suffer the consequences. But on the flip side, there was a real life Robin Hood living in Portland, Oregon. She smiled to herself. It figured that an American Robin Hood would talk like a cowboy. She still wasn't sure if she was going to take him up on his offer though. She'd never broken any serious laws in her life. Hell, she even found it difficult to disobey silly little rules. Her father had drilled that in to her. _"Rules are there to keep us all safe, Katie. Keep us from hurting each other. The world is a dangerous place, but it would be even more dangerous if there were no rules. And that's why people who break the rules are punished. They put the whole world in danger."_

_But they don't get punished, Daddy,_ she thought, leaning her forehead against the bus window and fingering the chain of his dog tags around her neck. _They get away with it_. The tags made her think of Eliot again. He said he'd been a soldier. That explained why he reminded her of her father. _'Soldiers make the world safe.' Isn't that what you always said, Daddy? When individual people break the rules, you send policemen to arrest them. And when governments break the rules, you send soldiers._ Well, the government had broken the rules today. They had declared Toby innocent because they were scared of his father. So what she needed was a soldier to make things right again.

By the time she got off the bus across the street from her apartment, she had made up her mind. She was going to tell Eliot that she wanted his help to make Toby and his father pay. But it was getting late. He had probably gone home. She wondered if he had a family, a wife, and maybe kids. She'd call him tomorrow morning.

As soon as she stepped through the door of her apartment, she knew something was wrong. She couldn't say which she noticed first – the mud spot on the carpet that definitely hadn't been there when she left that morning, or the faint chemical smell. But it was the creak of the coat closet to the left of the door opening that made her run.

She bounded down the stairs, heart pounding, crashed through the street door, and kept running towards the corner. As she turned on to the next street, she saw him coming out of the building. He had a scruffy blonde beard and a knit cap pulled own almost over his eyes. She didn't stop to take in any more detail than that.

She instinctively headed for the nearest main street and tried to get lost in the crowd, but every time she looked back he was there. Not getting any closer, just keeping pace with her with relentless single mindedness. Stalking her, she realized. That was when the real terror set in. She dug in her purse for her phone, thinking vaguely of calling the police. Then her hand touched the card Eliot had given her. Somehow she felt sure that Eliot would know what to do.

She dialed the number on the card while still walking as fast as she could. He picked up on the first ring with a gruff "Yeah?"

"Eliot?"

He noticed the panic in her voice right away. "Kate? What's wrong?"

She explained as clearly as she could. There was a long silence, or it seemed long to her. For a moment she was terrified that he didn't believe her. "Eliot? Are you there?" she asked.

"Yes. I'm right here, darlin'," he said. "I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do exactly what I tell you and you'll be fine."

So she had. And now she sat and waited. When the bearded man came in to the McDonald's two minutes after she did, she wanted nothing more than to run, but Eliot had told her to stay here. If she left, he might not be able to find her. The man sat down at a table near the door and watched her, but as Eliot had predicted he didn't want to approach her in front of so many people. The waitress was giving her meaningful looks, so she bought a soda, but it sat on the table unopened. She was afraid she would throw up. When the waitress tried to get the bearded man to buy something, he gave her such an icy glare that she immediately backed down.

Kate could only form one coherent thought. "Eliot, what does this guy want with me?" she asked. "I don't think he's just some crazy guy. He's . . . I don't know what it is. He seems very . . . good at this."

"I don't know what he wants," Eliot said, but she could tell he was lying. He thought the truth would scare her and she would panic. "Can you describe him for me?" he asked. "Or better yet, send me a picture."

Her hands were shaking, and she was trying not to let the man know what she was doing, so it took a couple tries to get a clear picture, but she finally managed it. "Do you know who he is?" she asked.

"No, but he's definitely ex-military by the clothes and the posture. Hang in there, Kate. You're being very brave. I'll be there in one more minute."

And then he was there. She hung up the phone and got shakily to her feet as he walked through the door. He hurried over to her. A few people looked at them curiously as she all but collapsed against him, tears of relief running down her face. He held her and patted her back, murmuring "It's okay. You're safe now." When she had calmed down, he looked at her more closely. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, wiping at her cheeks.

"Good. Take my hand. We're going to go have a little talk with this man about his ungentlemanly behavior."

Kate froze, but Eliot squeezed her hand reassuringly. "It's all right. I won't let him hurt you. I promise."

She followed him reluctantly over to the bearded man's table, wondering if he was going to beat the man up. Clearly the man was wondering the same thing. He tensed as they approached. But Eliot smiled pleasantly at him and spoke in a conversational tone.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't really care," he said. "I just want you to carry a message back to your boss. I know he doesn't deal well with failure, and his first reaction will be to try again, so I want you to tell him that I've taken Kate Ryan under my protection. If he or anyone connected with him comes within spitting distance of her, it will be the last thing they ever do. You got that, or do you want me to write it down for you?"

The bearded man stood up. He was an inch or so taller than Eliot. "That's quite a message," he said. He had some sort of foreign accent, but Kate couldn't place it. Maybe Australian. "All right," he went on when Eliot just stared at him calmly. "I'll tell him. And who shall I say this message is from?"

Eliot's smile widened, and now it had a disturbing predatory quality. "Eliot Spencer," he said.

The change in the man's demeanor was instant. He went pale and took a step back. "_The _Eliot Spencer?" he asked.

Eliot raised an eyebrow. "You know of another guy with the same name who would also dare to threaten a man like Tobias Jarret? I'd like to meet him." He turned away. "Come on," he said to Kate. "Let's go."


	4. Chapter 4

Eliot wished he hadn't had to play that card with Kate watching. It was one thing for her to know that he broke the law for a living, and quite another for her to see the kind of fear the mere sound of his name could inspire. She'd had enough fear in her life. But it was the only sure way to make Jarret back off. There weren't many things Tobias Jarret feared, but he feared Eliot Spencer, and with good reason. No one knew better than he what Eliot was capable of, not even Damien Moreau.

He could feel Kate watching him as he led her toward the van. "This is Lucille," he said to distract her. "I did not pick the name."

She smiled reflexively, but it faded quickly. "Eliot, are you sure Toby sent him?" she asked as she climbed in to the passenger seat. "I know he's not exactly a good person, believe me I know, but . . . hiring someone to kill me doesn't seem –"

"Not Toby," Eliot said. "His father. This is exactly his style." He revved the engine and maneuvered out in to the traffic.

"But why?" Kate asked. "The trial's over. They won."

"It's not that simple. It was a scandal, not just a crime. As long as people are talking about it, it continues to damage his reputation. He wants to erase all reminders of it so he can pretend it never happened. But I'm not going to let him do that. I promise. He'll rethink his plan when he gets my message. No one could ever call Tobias Jarret stupid."

They drove in silence for a couple minutes, but the silence was uncomfortable, filled with unspoken questions. Finally Eliot said, "You can turn on the music if you want. It's going to take us a bit longer to get back than it took me coming."

"Where are we going?" she said.

"Back to the Bridgeport pub. It's the safest place I can think of."

Her eyes widened. "You got here from there in five minutes? In this traffic?"

"I drove fast."

She looked at him skeptically.

"And I might have run a couple red lights."

"A couple?"

"Or a couple dozen. I wasn't counting."

"While talking on the phone? How are you still alive?"

He laughed. "Darlin', I've piloted helicopters through missile fire, and you want to know how I survived a trip through Portland rush hour?"

She smiled, and some of the tension was dispelled. She turned on the van's CD player. Hardison's "chase music" started playing.

Eliot winced. "Skip that one please. Anything but that, or it'll be stuck in my head all night."

"It is quite a persistent little tune," Kate said, flipping through the tracks.

"It's even worse with the lyrics."

"What are the lyrics?"

He shook his head. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

He knew right away it was the wrong thing to say. She stopped flipping tracks, letting it stop on a David Bowie song.

"_It's only forever. _

_Not long at all. _

_The lost and the lonely."_

"Did you mean it when you told him you would kill anyone who tried to hurt me?" she asked very quietly. "Would you really kill them?"

"_No one can blame you_

_For walking away_

_From too much rejection . . ."_

"If I have to. But I won't have to," he said, not sure if he was reassuring her or himself. "The important thing is that Jarret knows I'm part of the game now, and that changes his whole approach. You're not worth lives to him."

She was staring out the passenger side window at the darkening city flashing by. She couldn't look at him. "So when you said before that you knew Jarret, what did you mean?"

Eliot bit his lip. It was hard enough to discussing these things with the team. With someone he hadn't even know for a day, it was excruciating.

"_Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl, _

'_Cause it hurts like hell."_

"I worked for him," he told Kate.

She drew in a sharp breath. "Worked for him . . . like that guy back there?"

Eliot kept his eyes fixed on the road, thinking over his answer. He needed her trust if he was going to help her, and he had to help her now. If he didn't, she'd be dead in a day. But if he lied to her and then she found out the truth, she certainly wouldn't trust him. Truth might hurt like hell for a while, but secrets could destroy you.

She was looking at him now, sensing that he was struggling with himself.

"Yes," he said. "Exactly like that."

She waited.

With a sigh, he pulled the van over to the curb and put it in park. "Listen," he said. "I . . . I wasn't always the person I am now. I've . . . done some very bad things in my life. Things I can never forgive myself for. But I'm not that man anymore. Now I help people instead of hurting them. That doesn't erase the past, I know. But nothing can. This is all I can do." He studied her face in the dim light, praying she would understand and let him protect her because he was probably the only person who could.

"_But down in the underground_

_You'll find someone true."_

"Please believe me, Kate, when I say I will never hurt you. You don't have to be afraid of me. The people who want to hurt you do."


	5. Chapter 5

This time they entered the Bridgeport Brew Pub through the back door. Kate followed Eliot down a deserted corridor. She was trying not to act too tense around him. She had told him she would trust him to protect her, that what he had done in the past wasn't important, and she hadn't exactly been lying. But she couldn't shake from her mind the image of the terror on the bearded man's face when he heard the name Eliot Spencer. Eliot hadn't been just any assassin. He'd been an assassin that even other assassins were afraid of. _I should be grateful for that_, she told herself. _Because he's the only thing standing between me and those other assassins_. But that wasn't a comforting thought at all.

Kate had no experience with what went on behind the scenes in a restaurant, but she was still pretty sure that the room Eliot led her to was not standard for any restaurant in the normal world. Not that anything about this day had been normal. She stared in awe at the enormous screen dominating one wall. To her surprise, half of it was currently showing the photo of her attacker that she had sent to Eliot's phone. The other half of the screen appeared to be running a facial recognition program.

A man and a woman were sitting at a table in the middle of the room. They looked up when Eliot and Kate walked in. "Oh, man. Don't ever do that to me again?" the man said. "What the hell happened out there?"

As Eliot explained briefly, Kate sank in to the nearest chair. Now that she was no longer in immediate danger, the full gravity of the situation sank in. There were paid killers after her, and the only person who could help her had once been a paid killer himself. She didn't fool herself that going to the police would do any good. If Jarret could buy the court, he could certainly buy the police. Dimly she heard Eliot and his friends discussing what the computer had turned up on her attacker.

"He started out in the South African Defense Force. Then he did a few years with some mercenary company called Executive Outcomes. He's wanted for smuggling and arms dealing in South Africa, Liberia, and the UK. This guy is serious shit, Eliot."

"Well, Jarret only hires the worst."

What was her life going to be like from now on? Kate wondered. Eliot couldn't stay by her side every moment. Would she have to change her name, go in to hiding, and leave everything she'd ever known behind? Granted she didn't have much, but what she had was precious to her. It had taken her a long time to build something resembling a stable life. And in a moment it was all going to taken away. She hadn't though it was possible for her to hate Toby any more than she did, but now she found there were deep reserves of hatred she hadn't yet plumbed.

"Hey. You all right?" A hand lightly touched her shoulder, and she looked up to find Eliot watching her with concern.

"I'm fine," she said abruptly. He quickly took his hand away, sensing that she was still bothered by their conversation in the car whatever she had said.

"That's funny," said the young, blond woman, apparently not noticing the awkward moment. "You do that just like Eliot does . . . Say you're fine when you're not," she explained when Kate looks confused. "We always know he's not fine when he says he's fine. He never says he's fine when he's fine. What do you do when you're fine? Eliot curses a lot."

Kate stared at her, partially nonplussed, and partially impressed that the woman had gotten through that convoluted speech without getting tongue tied.

"This is Parker," Eliot said with an amused smile. "She takes some getting use to. And this is Hardison. I would call him our resident genius, but if his opinion of himself gets any higher it'll burn up in the atmosphere."

The tall, dark, nerdily charming man made a face at Eliot, then said to Kate, "Don't listen to him, girl. He's just jealous 'cause the geeks took over the world when he wasn't looking."

Kate looked from one to another of these people, then around the room. "I'm sorry. I'm very disoriented," she said. "What is this place? Who are you?"

"We're Leverage International," Eliot said. "This is our headquarters."

"This?" This was not at all what she had pictured. "I thought you'd have - you know, an office and stuff."

"Yeah, we tried that once when we were first starting out," Hardison said. "It didn't end well."

"It blew up," Parker said. "Literally."

"Blew up? How?" Kate asked with morbid fascination.

"Well, we sort of blew it up on purpose," Eliot said. "It's a long story. Are you hungry, by the way? Great thing about working out of the back of a restaurant - there's always food when you want it. And it's free since Hardison owns the place."

"Yeah. I'm starving," Kate said, only noticing her complaining stomach now that the adrenaline was starting to ebb away. She couldn't remember breakfast or lunch. She could only vaguely recall the cup of coffee she'd had while she talked to Eliot less than two hours ago.

Eliot went to find them some dinner. "Do you have anyone you want to call?" Hardison asked Kate. "Anyone who will wonder where you are?"

Kate shook her head. "No. I don't have anyone. No family, and what friends I had have drifted away over the past few months. My life's just been to weird for them to handle." It had started right after Toby's attack - the awkwardness of the visits while she was in the hospital, the pitying looks when they could bring themselves to meet her eyes at all. And once the trial had started, she hadn't had the time or the inclination for a social life. Finally even interacting with her students was painful until losing her job was almost a relief.

"I know what you mean," Parker said sympathetically. "I had this friend once. Her name was Peggy, and she was really normal. I mean she loved cats, and she owned a catering business." She said it in the same tone that someone else might say, _She collected human skulls and ate toads_. "She was really nice, but I could only do normal stuff with her. Which was cool for a while, you know. It was different. But then she found out what I actually do for a living. I mean, she thought I was some sort of spy, but it was close enough. And after that, it was like she just didn't know how to talk to me anymore. I guess normal people just don't make very good friends."

"I . . .don't think that's what she meant," Hardison said tactfully, "but thanks for trying, babe."

But Kate said, "No. She's right actually." It was an odd kind of logic, but it _was _logical. "People who need things to be normal all the time _don't_ make very good friends. Friends need to be able to stick out whatever life throws at you."

Parker beamed. "Exactly. See? I did know what she meant."

Hardison smiled at Kate, and she could tell that she'd passed some sort of test.

Eliot returned with four hamburgers and a large plate of crispy french fries. The smell made Kate's stomach growl and Eliot smiled. "Nothing like good food to put the world right again," he said as she began to eat ravenously. "Later Parker and I will go by your apartment and get your clothes and stuff. You can have one of the apartments upstairs for now. Hardison, how soon can you put together an alias for her?"

"I can just give her one of Parker's," Hardison said indistinctly around a mouthful of burger. "Change all the pictures."

"No. Not all the pictures," Eliot said. "Just the ones on the hard ID. Leave Parker's picture in all the computer files."

"So if he does a facial recognition search, he'll come up blank." Hardison grinned. "That's good. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you've never met Tobias Jarret. He redefines paranoia."

"He always had two security guards following him during the trial," Kate remembered. "They weren't allowed to carry guns in the court room, but they didn't look like they needed them."

"No. They didn't," Eliot said. "And there were probably several plain clothes guards nearby as well."

"Yeah, about this Jarret guy," Hardison said. "The Black Book doesn't have anything on him, and all I could find online was the legit stuff. His company's a licensed security contractor. They're like an agency for private bodyguards. All the rich and famous hire from them. They've never been in trouble with the government. Whatever dark secrets this guy has, he's buried them well. The only thing that smells of scandal is this case with his son."

"Yeah, he covers his tracks well," Eliot said. "His reputation is very important to him. So important that he was willing to kill an innocent bystander to protect it. Like I said, paranoid redefined."

"So how do we run a game on him if we don't know anything about him?" Parker asked. "Please don't say we have to root through his garbage."

Eliot gave a small smile. "No. You wouldn't find anything that way either. But who says we don't know anything about him? We've got something better than garbage."

"Anything's better than garbage," Hardison said, looking a little green. "What have we got?"

"Me," Eliot said. "I know as much as anyone alive about Jarret. Unfortunately, he also knows as much as anyone about me. And since I warned him to leave Kate alone, he knows I'm not on his side anymore. I can't get near him, and I'm sure as hell not sending you two in there without backup. We're going to need some help with this one."

"How does he know -" Hardison began.

But he was drowned out by Parker who bounced up in her seat waving a french fry in the air. "Oh, oh, I know who we can call."

"No!" Eliot and Hardison said simultaneously.

"We aren't having this argument again, Parker," Eliot said. "We are not going to bother Nate or Sophie, and that's final. And if you go behind my back and call them, I'll -" He fumbled for a moment, searching for a serious enough threat. Finally, he said menacingly, "I'll take away your lockpicks."

Apparently this was a dire threat indeed. Parker looked like a kicked puppy, and Hardison muttered, "Ouch. You sure know how to hit where it hurts."

"See, this is why I miss Nate," Parker pouted. "Nate wasn't mean."

For some reason this made both Eliot and Hardison burst out laughing.

Hardison almost choked on his food. "Maybe you _should_ let her call him," he gasped when he could speak again. "Just to refresh her memory."

"I would," Eliot chuckled, "but Sophie would kill me."

Kate watched this exchange with bemusement. These people seemed like more than friends. They acted almost like siblings. "Who are Nate and Sophie?" she asked.

"Nate was the leader of this team," Eliot said. "And Sophie was our grifter. They left a couple months ago. Got married, actually, which is why," - he looked sternly at Parker - "we are not going to bother them. If I know Sophie, it's going to be a long honeymoon. Anyway, we don't need help with the con. We need a hitter. A hitter Jarret doesn't know."

"Yeah, um, I know I may regret asking this," Hardison said, "but why does Jarret know so much about you? I mean, we don't pry. We don't ask because you might tell us, and generally I'm cool with that, but if we're going up against this guy -"

"You have a right to know," Eliot said quietly. "You're right. And I'm going to tell you."

"Sometime before I get thrown in a swimming pool while handcuffed to a chair I hope," Hardison said.

Whatever that meant, It made Eliot wince guiltily. "Yes. Before that. I promise. But in order to explain properly, there are a lot of other things I have to tell you about Jarret, so it's better if it waits until the briefing. In the meantime, I'm going to call a few old friends."


	6. Chapter 6

_Thank you, everyone, for the followings, favorites, and reviews. I feel very loved. A special thank you goes to Athea781 who gave me a great idea for which direction to take the story next. Keep the drabbles coming. _

_The italicized parentheses are translations for all the readers who don't actually speak Hebrew. Those words are not actually being spoken. _

_Eliot's accent really is as awful as Mikhal says. I was just re-watching 'The Two Live Crews Job' last night in preparation for writing this chapter, and even though I speak the language fluently I needed the subtitles to understand him because he mangled the words so badly. Didn't make me love him any less though. It was kind of adorable actually. _

* * *

An hour later Eliot was coming up empty on the hitter front. The field was limited to begin with. There were only a handful who were both skilled enough and trustworthy enough, and apparently none of them were crazy enough to go up against Tobias Jarret. Eliot glanced across the room where Kate and Parker were watching Hardison adjust one of Parker's aliases for Kate to use. Kate seemed to be coping well with the idea of going in to hiding, and she got along incredibly well with Parker, taking the thief's idiosyncratic personality in stride. Adaptable, Eliot realized, was the word that best described Kate Ryan. She had a rare gift for adapting. But that didn't mean she should have her world turned upside down for no good reason. He had to pull this together so she could have her life back. There had to be someone who could help them.

And a name dropped in to his head. It was a name he hadn't considered at first because she was very well known. But he realized that he didn't need someone Jarret had never heard of. He just needed someone Jarret didn't have pegged as a potential ally of Eliot's. He grinned as he flipped through his contacts in search of the number, remembering vividly the morning that he'd woken up alone and very sore to find a note on the pillow beside him. That note and the soreness were the only proof that she'd really been there. The note had a phone number and the words, '_Call me if you ever want to fight on the same side. M.'_ No, they'd never been allies before. Rivals, counterparts, ships passing in the night, but never allies. Now he dialed that number for the first time.

When she answered, the husky, thickly accented voice sounded half asleep and extremely pissed. "Mi ba'gehinom ata, v'ma ba'gehinom ata rotze b'sha'a ka'zot_?_" (_Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you want at this hour?_)

Too late he realized it was four o'clock in the morning there. He was suddenly very glad that he was several continents out of reach of her fists. "Mikhal," he said. "Shalom. Slika. Shakakti ha'shinuy zman." (_Hi. Sorry. I forgot the time difference._)

"Spencer?" She was suddenly wide awake, and to his relief considerably less pissed. "Wai'wai. Zeh pitomi. Ma nishma?" (_Wow. This is a surprise. What's up?_)

He smiled. "Yesh lak zikaron tov la'kolim." (_You have a good memory for voices_.)

"No one else speaks Hebrew with such an awful accent," she said, switching to English. "You murder the language with every word. What do you want, bokar (_cowboy_)? Why are you all of a sudden calling me after so long?"

"Do I need a reason?" he asked playfully. Then he added as an afterthought, "And am I really that bad?" He'd been rather proud of his command of the complicated language.

"Kein v'kein," (_Yes and yes,_) Mikhal said bluntly.

"B'seder, b'seder," (_Okay, okay,_) he laughed. "I'm calling because I have an offer for you. My crew is planning a big job and we need some backup. Are you busy at the moment?"

"No. I just finished a job. I'm on vacation for a little while." Her tone became coy. "I guess I could spend it with you."

"And my crew," he reminded her.

"Peratim," (_Details,_) she laughed. "What's the job?"

This was the hard part. "Tobias Jarret of Jarret Security. We've been hired to take him down."

Her reaction was similar to all the others he'd gotten. "Ata meshuge? Zeh ee efshar." (_Are you crazy? This is impossible_.)

"Lo. Hu efshar," (_No. It's possible,_) he said firmly. "Kashe meod aval efshar." (_Very hard but possible._)

"If you want to get yourself and your team killed for the sake of your little milchemet mitzva (_crusade_), Spencer, you can do it without my help."

"Rega," (_Wait,_) he said desperately. "Rega akat, b'vakasha, Mikhal. (_Wait one minute, please._) Let me tell you the whole story. Will you just listen? Please?"

He heard her sigh. "B'seder, aval zeh tzarich li'hiye tov meod." (_Okay, but this had better be good_.)

So he told her about Kate Ryan and how Jarret had bribed the court to let his son off the hook for the rape. He spoke in Hebrew, both so Kate wouldn't be embarrassed at hearing him talking about her, and because he knew the story would resonate better with Mikhal in her native language. Even over the vast distance, unable to see her face, he could feel her relenting. Whatever else Mikhal Dayan was, she was a woman. And a woman who had seen the terrible things men could do in the heat of the moment. Eliot suspected she had become the fighter she was partly to protect herself from those kinds of men. "Tov midai lak?" (_Good enough for you?_) he asked at last.

"Kein," (_Yes,_) she said softly. "Tov midai. (_Good enough_.) Where are you based now?"

He let out his breath in a sigh of relief. "Portland," he said. "Call me when you're in the country and I'll text you the address."

"Tov," (_Good,_) she said brusquely. "L'hitraot." (_See you soon_.) And she hung up.

Eliot turned to find Hardison, Parker, and Kate staring at him with some confusion. He realized they had only understood about a quarter of the conversation. "We have our hitter," he explained. "Mikhal Dayan. She'll be here some time tomorrow night."

"Mikhal Dayan?" Hardison said. He gave a low whistle. "How long have you been waiting for an excuse to make _that_ call? Tell the truth now, Eliot."

Eliot looked away to hide a grin. "A long time."


	7. Chapter 7

When she woke the next morning, it took Kate a moment to remember where she was. Once it all came back to her, she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, but she'd learned in the dark, painful months after the attack that that was the surest way to become completely defeated. So she forced herself to get up and explore the apartment Eliot had given her. She'd been too tired the night before to do more than find the bed and collapse. Now she saw that the place was furnished but bare, and it had a musty smell. It hadn't been lived in for a while.

In the living room she found most of her own possessions - piles of clothes, her laptop, her books. She noticed with a smile that he had even brought the picture of her parents that had sat on her bedside table. For a moment she stood and looked at their faces. Her father was looking at the woman in his arms as though she was the only other person in the world, and her mother was glowing with love and pride. They'd been just about the age Kate was now when the picture was taken. She put the picture down quickly as dark thoughts threatened to overwhelm her again. Finding her toiletries under the clothes, she went to take a shower.

Twenty minutes later, clean and dressed, she ventured out, twisting her wet hair in to a braid as she walked. Eliot had told her that the apartment at the end of the hall served as a sort of communal area, and sure enough the door was open and the sound of country music was drifting out. She peeked around the door. Eliot was standing in the little kitchen, watching over a frying pan on the stove. A radio on the counter was the source of the music, and he was singing along softly while he worked. "G'morning," he said without turning. "Sleep well? I hope I didn't wake you when I brought in your stuff."

"No. I slept like a rock," she assured him. "How did you know it was me without looking?"

"I did look." He tapped the shiny surface of the counter beside him. "I just didn't turn. Never assume a person can't see you just because their back is turned. Eighty percent of flat surfaces hold a reflection. Even if it's distorted, you can get a general impression. A woman or a man, for example. From there you can deduce the details. Parker's the only other woman around, and the footsteps in the hall a moment ago were too loud to be Parker. You hungry?"

"Yes," she said, but warily. The smell coming from the pan on the stove was unfamiliar, and in her experience men who cooked only for themselves most of the time tended to get overly creative. She would never forget the peanut butter covered pickles boyfriend.

Eliot turned off the stove, moved the pan to a cool burner, and scooped some kind of lumpy brown cake on to a plate. Not wanting to be rude, Kate sat down at the table and picked up the fork he set beside the plate. She examined the unknown meal tentatively and decided it was some species of potato pancake, but . . . "What's the purple stuff?" she asked.

He grinned playfully. "Try it and find out."

She sighed and cautiously took a bite, preparing a tactful way to tell him she hated it. The words vanished as soon as the food touched her tongue. It was amazing. Sweet and savory at the same time. She turned it over in her mouth, trying to identify the tastes. Carrots, onions, cheese . . . Was that mustard?

"Like it?" Eliot said.

She nodded enthusiastically. "What is it?"

"Swallow first," he said, "because you're going to laugh. It's the most ridiculous name in the history of food." She obediently swallowed. He put on an impressive poker face and said solemnly, "Bubbles and Squeaks."

She did laugh. Had there been food in her mouth she would have choked. "Are you serious?" she asked when she could breathe again.

"Completely. A Scottish friend of mine introduced me to it. It's called that because those are the sounds it makes while it's cooking. The oil bubbles, and the cabbage, which is what the purple stuff is by the way, makes a squeaking noise as it releases its gases."

"Huh," Kate said. "Well, whatever noise it makes, it tastes like heaven. My compliments to the chef."

"The chef is going to have some himself," Eliot said, scooping another of the ridiculously named cakes on to a plate and turning off the radio before sitting down across from her.

They ate in silence for a few moments. Kate was relieved that the awkwardness that had followed their conversation in the car had faded. She felt easy around him again. "So," she said. "You play the guitar, and you cook. What other hidden talents does the mysterious vigilante have?"

He shrugged. "I can ride a horse."

"Oh, I'd expect nothing less of you, cowboy. I'll bet you can also handle a gun."

Too late she realized she'd strayed in to sensitive territory again. The shadow passed over his face, the one she was coming to recognize as the ghost of his past. "I can," he said, "but I don't like guns."

That surprised her. "My father was the same way," she said, her fingers going automatically to the chain around her neck. "He used to say guns were too . . . impersonal. When you don't have to look the person you're killing in the eyes, he said, it's too easy to forget what death is."

Now Eliot looked surprised as well. "What did your father do?" he asked.

"He was in the army . . . Well," she corrected herself, "he had been in the army. He left just after he married my mother. But he continued doing government work. I'm not sure exactly what. He wasn't allowed to talk about it."

Just then Parker appeared in the doorway, her blond hair still tousled from sleep. She sniffed the air and grinned. "You made squeaky cakes! Where's mine?"

Eliot pointed at the pan. "Help yourself."

She crossed the kitchen, and Kate noticed that her footsteps _were_ remarkably quiet. She started to take a cake with her fingers and immediately snatched them back with a cry of pain.

"They're hot," Eliot said belatedly.

"You could have warned me _before_ I touched them."

"I thought you were going to use a fork like a normal person. I can't imagine why I thought that."

As Parker began searching for a fork, Eliot turned back to Kate. "Do you know what branch of the government he worked for?" he asked. "CIA, FBI, one of those?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I know that when he was in the army, he was Special Forces. Black Ops missions, you know." She pulled the chain up around her neck. "These were his tags." Eliot took them almost reverently, and Kate smiled. "Now I know for certain you were once a soldier," she said.

He looked at her questioningly.

"You handle them like they're more than a piece of cheap metal," she explained. "Like you're holding a piece of his soul. Only a soldier or a soldier's child would do that."

Eliot nodded, rubbing them lightly between his fingers. He read the name stamped firmly in the metal. "Captain David Anthony Ryan. I know that name. I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't remember . . ." He trailed off, frowning with thought.

"Did you serve with him?" Kate asked excitedly.

"No. I would definitely remember that. I don't think I ever actually met him. I just heard something about him once." He shook his head. "It'll come to me eventually." He handed the tags back to her. "He's dead now?"

She nodded, tucking the tags under her shirt and feeling their warmth against her heart. "Both my parents are dead. They were killed in a car accident when I was sixteen." She looked down at her empty plate. "That's really when my life started to fall apart. This whole thing with Toby was just the latest disaster. Nothing has gone my way for the last ten years."

Eliot reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "Things are going to go your way now," he said. "We're going to see to that."

She smiled at him. Strength seemed to flow in to her from his touch.

The moment was broken abruptly as Parker straightened up from rummaging through a drawer and triumphantly held up a fork, exclaiming "Ah ha!" She turned towards the frying pan, holding the fork like a sword. "Prepare to die, squeaky cakes."


	8. Chapter 8

_So here it is at last. The one you've been waiting for. Eliot's big secret is about to be revealed. I promise that all the stuff from the last few chapters will be very important later in the story. Well, maybe not the death of the squeaky cakes, but you gotta have some comic relief. _

_Before we get down to storytelling, though . . . _

**_WARNING: IF YOU HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT ISRAEL, KEEP YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS TO YOURSELF. THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE STORY. I'M JUST TRYING TO DEVELOP MIKHAL'S CHARACTER. ANY POLITICAL COMMENTS WILL BE REPORTED AS ABUSE AND I WILL BAN YOU FROM MY ACCOUNT. IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY ANYTHING I SAY THROUGH MIKHAL, JUST STOP READING. BOYCOTT ALL MY STORIES, IF YOU WANT, BUT DON'T BOTHER ARGUING WITH ME. THIS WARNING WILL NOT APPEAR AGAIN, BUT IT APPLIES TO THE REST OF THE STORY AS WELL. _**

_Thank you for your consideration, and I hope you enjoy. _

* * *

Eliot picked Mikhal up from the airport himself in the end. He decided that inflicting a jet lagged Mikhal Dayan on an innocent Portland taxi driver just might be a war crime. She slept most of the way back to the pub, or at least dozed. He was sure she could be alert in a heartbeat if there was any sign of danger. He sneaked glances at her at every red light. God, he had forgotten how beautiful she was. And how tantalizingly dangerous. Even asleep, she had a lithe, predatory tension that marked her to a trained eye as a fighter of extraordinary ability. Having her on his side made him feel a little bit more hopeful about their chances of winning this fight. That dangerous edge could bite him just as easily as Jarret though. He didn't dare forget that for a moment. At least not until the job was done. Once this was over, if they were both still alive, a little biting wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

She opened her eyes as soon as the car stopped outside the pub, and he wondered if she had been surreptitiously watching him the entire time. She showed no sign of disorientation or fatigue. You would never guess that she'd been traveling for almost twenty four hours through ten different time zones, but Eliot knew from personal experience that cat naps could only keep you going for so long. She would need a deep sleep before they did any serious work. Tonight they would just do the briefing.

He led her through the darkened bar to the back room. When he opened the door, he found Kate getting acquainted with Parker's pet safe cracking robot. "Hardy, say hello to Kate," Parker instructed it.

The thing extended an arm and warbled, "_Hello, Kate_."

Kate laughed delightedly. Eliot realized it was the first genuinely happy laugh he had heard from her. It was a beautiful sound. "That's so clever," she said. "And it picks locks?"

"Well, electronic locks," Hardison said. "I can't get enough precision with the joints to operate a manual lock pick. But we gotta leave somethin' for the human beings to do, right?"

Eliot cleared his throat to get their attention. They looked up. Hardison and Parker recognized Mikhal, though Eliot could tell by Hardison's expression that he too had forgotten just how attractive and intimidating she was in person. Kate's eyes widened a little as well. "Mikhal, you remember Hardison and Parker," Eliot said. "And this is our client, Kate Ryan."

Mikhal nodded politely at everyone. "Where is Ford?" she asked. "And Miss Deveraux?"

"Oh," Eliot said. "I thought you would have heard. We didn't exactly make a secret of it. They retired last year."

For a moment he was afraid she was going to say that changed the agreement, but she just raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. "Retired? Sophie Deveraux? B'emet? (_Really?_) I am not up to date in the thieving world. I've been doing . . .other work lately. So who is the leader now?"

"I am."

She looked at Eliot with an odd expression. It wasn't surprised. It was almost . . .admiring. "You, Bokar? So this idea about taking down Jarret, you came up with this? I know Ford would be arrogant enough to think he could do it, and you would follow him off a cliff, but I never expected such meshugat to come directly from you?"

"Did she just call Eliot a bad word in Hebrew?" Parker stage whispered to Hardison.

"No, babe. Meshugat just means insanity," Hardison assured her.

"No, not that one. I know that one. Like meshuganer," Parker said. "I mean the other one."

"I don't know what that one meant," Hardison said.

"Bokar? It means cowboy," Eliot told them with a half smile. Then he turned back to Mikhal. She was testing him, he knew. She would have done it to Nate as well. He chose his words carefully and kept his tone light. "I guess you overestimated my sanity," he said. "Yeah, this is my crazy idea, and maybe I'm being arrogant, fighting some kind of crusade just like Nate. Kate, well, she doesn't have a choice in the matter, and Hardison and Parker aren't known as the sanest people in the world. But what about you? Here you are. No matter whose idea it was, you agreed to help us attempt it. Why?"

Mikhal shrugged, her dark eyes twinkling with wry humor. "I'm Israeli."

Eliot gave a short bark of laughter. "Actually that's a damn good reason."

"It is?" Hardison said, confused. "Why?"

Mikhal looked at him. "Because, Mr. Hardison, it means I have never let certainty of failure stop me from succeeding. Now, I am extremely jet lagged and my attention span is katzar meod, so yalla."

The other three looked to Eliot for a translation. "Very short. Let's move along," he said. "Hardison?"

Hardison tapped his keyboard, and the big screen lit up with a picture of Tobias Jarret Sr.

"Our target," Eliot said. "Founder and CEO of one of the largest private military contractors on the North American continent. Did his time under the stars and stripes back in the Vietnam era, then worked for a few other PMCs before starting his own. But the reason he's really famous in the mercenary world is the Tobias Jarret Security Training Institute, a subsidiary of Jarret Security. Now every PMC has some sort of training program, but it's usually more of a testing program to make sure you have the skills necessary for the work. You acquire those skills in the first place by serving in the official military of your native country. Jarret changed all that. He took the Military out of Private Military Contractor. He takes nineteen or twenty year old kids who for one reason or another, usually a criminal record, can't join the US army, and for a moderate fee he gives them military training. I mean, he almost exactly duplicates the conditions of a military boot camp. It's six months of utter hell, but when it's over, these kids are hired out as bodyguards for the rich and paranoid. 'Trained by Jarret' is synonymous with 'elite' in the world of private security. They can always find work, and they can pretty much name their own price. Now this part of the business is completely legal. But every PMC has a sideline. Most of the time it's arms dealing since that's a good way to drum up legal business. Sell weapons to rebel groups, and when the rebels use those weapons, the government hires you to take the rebels down. You get rich on either end. Jarret has modified this strategy to fit his personal style. If you hire out to fight insurgent armies, you make sure there's plenty of insurgency, and if you hire out bodyguards to rich, powerful people who are worried about assassins, you make sure there are always plenty of assassins." He took a breath. Here came the difficult part. "Jarret scouts all over the world, every military, every PMC there is, and he finds the best fighters. But he doesn't just look for fighting ability. He looks for people with nothing to lose. People . . .who have a reputation for bending the rules. And he offers them a place in an elite section of his school."

"He runs a hit man academy?" Hardison asked incredulously. "Man, I didn't know there even was such a thing. I thought you guys just sort of picked stuff up as you went along, you know. Natural selection and all that."

Parker put it together first. "He trained you," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.

Eliot nodded. "I was already out of the military for a while at the time, working for a different PMC. A legitimate one. Or as legitimate as they get. I was pretty good at what I did already, but Jarret . . ." He glanced at Kate's face and decided to skip the details. "He taught me a lot more," he said simply. "I mean _he _taught me personally, and he helped me develop contacts so that I could find jobs."

"How long before you met us was this?" Hardison asked.

"Ten years. I stopped working for Jarret a while before I stopped . . .doing that kind of work. I didn't like the way he did business."

"He took too much money for himself," Mikhal guessed. "And you lived with it for a while, but then you got a better offer. Maybe even from someone you were sent to kill."

"Damien Moreau actually."

"You were hired to kill Damien Moreau?" Hardison said. "Damn, you really must have been the best in the business."

"More importantly, you didn't kill him?" Parker added. "You could have saved us a lot of trouble."

"Parker, I was still a bad guy," Eliot said impatiently. "And I didn't know I was going to end up . . ." He gave up. "Anyway, it wasn't Moreau I was hired to kill," he continued, passing over the 'best in the business' comment with a glance at Mikhal. "It was one of his friends. And I got caught. It turned out to be a bait job, something Moreau used to do occasionally. Through a third party he'd take out a contract on one of his own people. Someone he could afford to lose. Then he'd sit back and watch how close the assassin could get. It would be a kind of audition."

"How close did you get?" Mikhal asked.

_He had the knife to the target's throat. The man had stopped struggling. He was paralyzed with fear. And then the door opened and Moreau walked in, a glass of wine in his hand. He examined the scene calmly, and said, "Impressive. Such fine work really deserves better pay, don't you think?"_

"Pretty damn close. Let's leave it at that, huh?" Eliot said.

"Wait, who is this Moreau?" Kate asked.

"Just another big, nasty, bad guy, now safely in jail thanks to us," Hardison said.

"We had to steal a whole country to do it," Parker said.

"So that was you," Mikhal said. "I wondered."

"You stole a country?" Kate said incredulously.

"Only to give it back to the people," Parker said. "Moreau stole it first, so it cancels out."

But that wasn't what was bothering Kate. "_How_ do you steal an entire country?" she asked.

"Well," Parker said, ticking off on her fingers, "first we helped the good guys win the election, then we broke Eliot's friend out of prison, then we faked an assassination -"

"Faked an assassination?"

"Uh huh. We shot Sophie with a paint ball gun, and then she pretended to be dead, and Michael held her in his arms and cried. I mean, he really cried because we didn't tell him it was fake so he thought she was really dead."

"We never did tell him she wasn't," Hardison said.

"He couldn't have kept it a secret," Eliot pointed out. "You saw what he was like. There is such a thing as too much honesty."

"I thought he was sweet," Parker said. "Anyway, after the assassination there were riots, and Nate went and talked to the president -"

"Fascinating as this is, we have a new job to plan right now," Mikhal broke in. She looked at Eliot. "This is why I don't work with permanent crews, Spencer. It gets too cluttered."

"You'll get used to it," he said. "But Mikhal's right. Let's focus. Here is the plan for taking down Tobias Jarret."


	9. Chapter 9

_This chapter is dedicated to my amazing boyfriend Benny who loaned Hardison his name. Benny is my beta reader and moral support. Without him this story would not have made it past the first chapter, so everyone who has enjoyed it owes him a big thank you. _

* * *

**Olympia, Washington**

**one week later**

"_I hate switching jobs,_" Hardison's voice muttered in Eliot's ear.

"You think I'm enjoying sitting in your funny smelling van and trying to do your geek thing?" Eliot growled.

On the computer screen he watched Hardison and Mikhal walk across the lobby of the high rise office building where Jarret Security had its corporate headquarters. Hardison had hacked the building's security system so Eliot could watch them wherever they went as long as there was a camera nearby. He had even programmed the computer to track the comms and automatically bring up the camera closest to them, saving Eliot the trouble of navigating the different feeds. Eliot knew he wasn't being nice. He just didn't want the hitter touching his computer any more than necessary, but that was fine with Eliot. "Believe me," he said, kicking away an empty orange soda bottle, "if there was another way, I'd be all for it."

"_Hey. First of all, Lucille does not smell funny. How many times do I have to tell you? And second of all, the computer is not gonna try to beat the crap outta you. I have to go meet a merchant of death, man. This is a hitter's job._"

"Which is why Mikhal is there," Eliot said with as much patience as he could muster. "Just concentrate on the grift. She's got your back."

"_All right, but I'm tellin' you, I'm allergic to fists near my face or . . .other vital areas. I got a doctor's note and everythin'. If things get bloody, I might just faint and blow the grift -" _

"Dammit, Hardison! Shut up!" Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn't been sleeping well since this job began. He was constantly on high alert in case Jarret took another shot at Kate, and on top of that the whole situation had stirred up long buried memories. His dreams were never exactly pleasant, (one reason that he slept as little as possible,) but they hadn't been this bad since the team had been chasing Moreau. And while it was possible with a little discipline to function just as well on two hours of sleep as on eight, it had to be two solid, uninterrupted hours. By now he was running mostly on the energy of his own tension like a wind up toy, and he had a constant low key headache which was aggravated by the harsh light of the computer screen.

"_No need to get snappy,"_ Hardison said. "_We all deal with fear in our own way. You hit things when you're nervous. I chatter. It's all good. It takes all kinds - Ouch!_"

This was because Mikhal's hand had shot out suddenly and jabbed him in the ribs. "_Sheket,_" (_Quiet,_) the woman snapped. "_We're almost there._"

"Toda raba, Mikhal," (_Thank you very much,_) Eliot said with a smirk.

"_Y'all are nasty,_" Hardison said sulkily before finally subsiding.

Eliot was granted thirty seconds of silence, and he used them to take his own advice and get his head focused on the job at hand rather than the list of things that could go wrong. Then Hardison and Mikhal entered the offices of Jarret Security, and the game began in earnest.

"_How can I help you?" _he heard the desk clerk ask pleasantly.

"_We have an appointment with Mr. Jarret,_" Hardison said with a thick Israeli accent. Mikhal had been coaching him all week, and as long as he stuck to English no one would question his authenticity. His Hebrew vocabulary was barely sufficient to communicate though, forget about passing for a native speaker.

"_Your names?_" the clerk asked, her attitude cooling in response to Hardison's brusqueness.

"_Benyamin Ruveni,"_ Hardison said, "_and Geula Ben-Sasson."_

The clerk tapped at her computer. "_Yes, the representatives from the Israeli consulate. Just a moment while I tell Mr. Jarret you're here._" She got up and disappeared down a hallway. Less than a minute later she was back. _"Right this way please,"_ she said.

Eliot watched them walk down the hallway and enter Jarret's office. He was prepared for the fact that the camera feed did not follow them in. Jarret valued his privacy almost as much as his reputation. But Eliot wasn't prepared for the squeal of feedback from his comm that made him wince and put a finger to his ear. "Hardison?" he said. "Mikhal? Hardison?!" There was only silence.

With a feeling of gut twisting apprehension, Eliot brought up the program that coordinated all the comm signals. Sure enough it was flashing in alarmed red letters, SIGNAL JAMMED.

* * *

The squeal of feedback was too loud and unexpected for Hardison to be able to hide his reaction. He glanced sideways at Mikhal, and she gave a tiny nod to indicate that her comm had also gone dead.

"Ah, sorry about that," said Jarret, rising from behind his desk. "It's nothing personal, but various people have attempted to bug my office in the past, so I have a selective signal jammer installed. It only activates when it detects an unauthorized signal in the room so it doesn't interfere with my own electronics."

Breathing a mental sigh of relief that the con wasn't blown before it began, Hardison said still in his Israeli accent, "That is all right, Mr. Jarret. We understand that a man in your position must take precautions." He turned to Mikhal. "Geula, step out in to the hall for a moment and tell our man downstairs not to worry. Everything is under control." He knew she would hear his real meaning. 'Tell Eliot not to panic and rush to our rescue. We still have chance to pull this off.'

She left the room, and he heard her speaking to Eliot in rapid Hebrew, but his own comm remained jammed so he couldn't hear what Eliot said. A moment later Mikhal returned and gave him another nod. They were clear to proceed.

"Everything all right then?" Jarret said. "Have a seat. Remind me of your names?"

"Colonel Benyamin Ruveni," Hardison said, "and this is Commander Geula Ben-Sasson. As we told your secretary on the telephone, we represent an elite unit of the Israeli Defense Force which is dedicated to tracking down and eliminating terrorist leaders -"

"Please, Colonel Ruveni." Jarret held up a hand. "We've established that this room is completely secure, and I dislike double talk. If we're going to do business, you'll have to speak plainly. You're with the Mossad."

Hardison didn't have to fake his smile. He loved it when the mark followed the script without realizing it. "I am glad you are so straightforward," he said. "It has been my experience that Americans love to talk in circles. You usually call it being polite, but I also have little patience for it. Yes, we are with the Mossad."

"And what does the most efficient, most successful black ops organization in the world want with an ordinary military contractor like Jarret Security?" Jarret asked. His eyes flickered briefly toward Mikhal as he spoke. She stared evenly back at him but said nothing.

"But you are not an ordinary military contractor," Hardison said, adding a small snap to his tone. Not enough to make Jarret feel threatened, but just enough to make it clear that Colonel Ruveni was the leader of this duo and Commander Ben-Sasson was just furniture unless he said otherwise. Jarret got the message and politely returned his gaze to Hardison who continued as though nothing had happened. "Your training methods are legendary in armies all over the world. And your success rate is just as high as ours. The Israeli government would like to know if you are interested in a collaboration."

Jarret's eyes narrowed. "What kind of collaboration?"

_Tread carefully_, Hardison reminded himself. This was no time to oversell the part. Dangle the bait just out of reach. Let him fill in the blanks. "Allow us to observe your training methods in action," he said, "for an extended period of time. In exchange, we will promise contracts to, let us say, thirty of your best students."

Jarret kept his expression neutral, or so he thought, but Hardison had learned people-reading from none other than Sophie Deveraux, and he saw the micro-expression of interest in the muscles around the eyes. "I have no trouble securing contracts for my students, especially the best of them," Jarret said. "As you said, my methods are legendary. Why should I give away my trade secrets for free?"

"Oh, if it is money you want, that can be arranged as well," Hardison said, knowing full well that that wasn't what Jarret wanted at all. "But think for a moment, Mister Jarret, what it would mean for your reputation if your clients found out that the Mossad, which you yourself called the most successful organization of its kind a moment ago, is using your methods and even hiring your students."

Hardison knew immediately that Eliot had read the man's hook perfectly. Jarret had a harder time controlling his face once he'd got a good sniff of the bait. What he wanted more than anything was legitimacy. He might be big in the private sector, but he knew that the official military and even other mercenary companies looked down on him as a small time operator. They even viewed his system of taking kids off the street rather than veteran soldiers as a little bit of a cheat. A contract like this would change all that. Whatever their personal political opinions, no one could call Mossad small time.

"I'll have to consider your proposal and discuss it with a few people," he said at last. "I may be the founder of this company, but I don't have sole control of it, especially in a matter as . . .large as this. And of course I'll have to check your credentials." His gaze flickered toward Mikhal again.

"Of course," Hardison said. "You know how to get in touch with the consulate, and," - he pushed a card across the desk - "here is my private number for when you have made up your mind."

* * *

The only job Eliot hated more than the computer stuff was waiting. At least tapping at a keyboard was doing something. Just sitting with nothing to distract his mind from the fear that everything was about to go wrong made his skin crawl.

He had been ready to pull the plug when the comms went offline, even though that would mean going in himself to pull Hardison and Mikhal out, possibly blowing the con for no reason. But he recognized that that was a hitter's instinct, and he wasn't the hitter on this one, so he had already decided to let Mikhal call it when her comm came back on. She explained in terse, rapid Hebrew about the selective signal jammer, but assured him that everything was under control. Then she signed off before he could reply. So he sat back to wait.

It seemed like an eternity before the security camera showed them exiting Jarret's office and heading for the elevator. Hardison started to say something once they were in the elevator, but Eliot said, "Wait. Don't talk yet. Mikhal, take appropriate precautions. I'll meet you back at the base camp." That was all he felt safe saying, but that was all he needed to say.

Climbing in to the driver's seat of the van, he watched them leave the building. Not even glancing toward the van, Mikhal hailed a cab. Once they were gone, Eliot started back to the hotel.


	10. Chapter 10

Eliot found Parker pacing the hotel suite like a caged lion. When he entered the room alone, her expression of bored impatience changed to alarm. "Where's Hardison?" she asked. "What happened?"

"Hardison and Mikhal are taking a roundabout route in case Jarret had them followed," he assured her. "I don't know what happened in the meeting." He started to explain about the signal jammer, but she had lost interest as soon as she knew that her boyfriend was safe, so he decided not to waste his breath. He went to the mini fridge in the suite's kitchenette and got out a beer. As he was opening it, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was four o'clock. Right on cue, his phone rang. He answered before the second ring. "Hey. Everything all right?"

"Yeah. Fine," Kate said. "One whole week as a fugitive and I'm still alive. I think I should get a t-shirt or something."

He smiled. "Don't lose that sense of humor, sweetheart."

He'd seriously considered bringing her with them so that he'd be close if Jarret took another shot at her, but it was too risky. First of all, it always complicated things when the client was deeply involved. It got too emotional and clouded people's judgment. And second, Olympia was Jarret's home town. The local news stations had covered the scandalous trial in Portland obsessively, and there was a strong possibility that someone would recognize her and word would get back to Jarret. He might dismiss it as a coincidence, but it would plant seeds of suspicion in his mind, and a suspicious mark was harder to control. So Eliot had reluctantly settled for a check in system. He'd given Kate a burner phone and orders to call him every day at exactly four o'clock no matter what, and of course any time of day or night if there was trouble.

"How's the job working out?" he asked.

Hardison had given her - or rather, Danielle Carson, her new alias - a job as a waitress in the pub until this was all over. If the other staff thought it odd that she lived upstairs from the pub, or that as soon as she showed up Hardison, Parker, and Eliot disappeared off to God alone knew where, they didn't comment. They were all aware that the Bridgeport was more than just a restaurant these days.

"Oh, it's great," Kate said. "I feel . . .normal again. It's been so long that I'd almost forgotten what that felt like. How are things on your end?"

"So far, so good," he said, hoping it was true.

"Uh huh. And that's all you're going to tell me." It wasn't a question.

"Plausible deniability, sweetheart," he reminded her. "Just trying to keep you clear if things go wrong."

"I know, I know," she sighed. "Well, I should get back to work . . ." She paused awkwardly.

"Was there something else?" he asked.

"No. Just . . .just be careful, Eliot. I . . .I don't want anything to happen to you. I mean, if you or your friends got hurt while trying to help me, I could never forgive myself."

He knew that wasn't all she meant, and he was uncomfortably aware of Parker's keen ears pricking with interest on the other side of the room. "I'm always careful," he said. "Don't worry about me." The door of the hotel suite opened and Hardison and Mikhal came in. "I have to go now," he told Kate. "I'll speak to you tomorrow."

"Same time. Sir, yes, sir," she said.

He ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, ignoring Parker's suspicious stare. "So what happened?" he asked. "Did he take the bait?"

"Oh, he gobbled that bait down like a starving man," Hardison said, "and he's already sniffing for more. There's just one problem. I can't hack his computer with that signal jammer in his office. His Internet connection is almost as secure as Fort Knox. I was hoping to slip a jump drive in his computer during the meeting, but that plan went out the window obviously. So we can't control what information his background check turns up."

Eliot exchanged a look with Mikhal. "All right. We'll just have to trust that we've laid our breadcrumb trail well enough that he won't get lost. How long do you think it will take him?"

Hardison shrugged. "One way or another, we should get the call by tomorrow morning."

"And then my part starts?" Parker asked eagerly.

"Not quite yet," Eliot said. "I want him good and hooked before we send you in."

Parker frowned. "Am I the carrot or the stick? I keep forgetting."

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose. Sometimes he wondered what it was like inside Parker's head. Then he realized he didn't really want to know. "The stick, Parker," he told her. "You're the stick."

"Oh, good," she said. "I like being the stick. The carrot is complicated."

"You've gotten better at it though," Hardison said loyally. "You haven't stabbed anyone in years."

"And to be fair, that guy in Belgrade was asking for it," Eliot said. "Even a normal woman would have stabbed him."

"He did give new meaning to creepy," Hardison agreed.

"Well, you could have said that at the time," Parker said grumpily, "instead of getting mad at me for blowing my cover."

"So there is nothing more to do today?" Mikhal broke in before an argument could start.

"No, I don't think so," Eliot said. "We're free until we get Jarret's call."

"Tov," (_Good,_) she said. "I'm going to see if this city has any good bars." She gave Eliot a sly smile. "Want to come with me, Bokar?"

Eliot was surprised. Throughout this past week of planning and preparation, she had treated him with nothing but professional courtesy and a certain amount of wariness. This sudden change of tune was disorienting, but he was willing to go with it. "Sure," he said.

Hardison gave him an "_are you sure you know what you're doing_" look which Eliot ignored.

* * *

Eliot and Mikhal wandered the streets of downtown Olympia as the sky began to darken and the city's night life stirred and woke with blinking neon lights and loud music. They didn't talk at first. Eliot liked that about Mikhal - she appreciated silence, and she knew how to make silence comfortable. It was relaxing not to have to think about the next thing to say. For a little while he let himself forget about Jarret, and the job, and even Kate whose shy overtures towards him were getting increasingly awkward and worrying. He put all those things in a box at the back of his mind so he could focus on this time and this woman at his side.

He sneaked glances at her as they walked. She moved with such grace and confidence. There was an arrogance about her, but not as though she expected everything to go her way. It was simply that she knew she could handle things no matter which way they went. And there was also something haunted in her face, a sadness and guilt that Eliot recognized all too well. It was this, more than her obvious beauty, that attracted him to her. With other women, (most recently with Kate,) no matter how accepting they were of his past, he always had a nagging feeling that they didn't really comprehend the things he'd done, that it wasn't real to them. And that if they did truly understand, they would hate and fear him. But Mikhal understood perfectly. She was of the same world, had done many of the same things. From her, if only her, he didn't need to fear judgment. They were equals.

"That one," Mikhal said suddenly, pointing to a bar at the end of the street. The red neon sign over the door said simply _The House_.

"Sure," Eliot said. "Looks interesting."

Inside the place had a smoky atmosphere that somehow managed to be both inviting and disreputable. "Is it just me," Eliot said, pausing inside the door, "or did we just step from Washington to Memphis?" There was a distinctly country feel to the decor, and the sound system was playing Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire' of all things.

"You should feel right at home, Bokar," Mikhal said teasingly.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asked with an accent to match the decor. Eliot identified it instantly as New Orleans.

"A beer," he said, his own accent coming through a little stronger in response to his surroundings.

The bartender's expression registered pleased surprise. "And for the lady?" he asked Mikhal.

"The same," she said.

"Two beers comin' up," he said. He took two glasses from under the bar and filled them from a tap. "Don't often see other Southerners round here," he said to Eliot as he set the full glasses on the bar. "Where you from? Kentucky?"

"Oklahoma," Eliot said. He took a long gulp of the beer and grinned. "This sure ain't no Blue Heron."

"'Course not," the bartender said. "None o' that swill gets in to my bar. That there's good old Dixie."

Eliot took another sip and nodded in appreciation. "It certainly is. That's damn hard to come by since Hurricane Katrina destroyed the brewery."

"Yeah, the company's been struggling, but I got a few connections back there," the bartender said with a conspiratorial wink.

"See?" Mikhal said as the bartender left to serve other customers. "You're right at home."

He smiled. "Next we'll have to find a place that sells . . . What's that stuff you like?"

"Arak. Maybe that should wait until the job is done. It's much stronger than this." She swirled the beer in her glass. "I'm used to it, but you might have some trouble. We don't want a drunken mastermind."

Eliot snorted. "No. We wouldn't want that."

They drank in silence for a few moments. The Johnny Cash song ended and Brooks and Dunn started singing about how much better life would have been if they'd become cowboys.

"So, Oklahoma," Mikhal said. "A farm?"

"A farm _town_," Eliot said, "but my dad wasn't a farmer. He ran a hardware store. The only hardware store in town actually which was its saving grace. It was the dirtiest, most disorganized store I've ever seen. If there'd been another, Dad would have been out of business in a heartbeat." He looked at Mikhal who was watching him with an unreadable expression. "What about you?" he asked. "Where are you from?"

He half expected her to clam up, but she answered quite readily. "K'far Gidon. It's a tiny village in the Yezre'el Valley. My father _was_ a farmer."

"When was the last time you went back?" he asked, figuring he should take advantage of this communicative mood while it lasted.

A shadow crossed her face and she looked down in to her drink. "There . . .there was a terrorist attack. My family was on a bus coming back from Tel Aviv one night. There was a car overturned in the road, on fire."

"And the bus was forced to stop." Eliot had seen the tactic many times.

She nodded, still looking fixedly down in to her beer. "Once it stopped, snipers started shooting out the windows. My parents and my . . .my sister Siona were killed. I survived. I was sent to live in an orphanage, and I never went back to K'far Gidon."

She finally raised her head. It occurred to him that though he had once seen her without any clothes on, this was the first time he had seen her truly naked, her heart laid bare in her eyes. He found that the knowledge that she trusted him enough to let him see that meant a lot to him. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. He reached out and tentatively touched the back of her hand. When she didn't pull away, he rested his hand atop hers.

"And why did you leave Oklahoma?" she asked. There was a faint note of challenge in her tone. She had trusted him. Now it was his turn. He owed her nothing less.

He took another swallow of his beer before answering. "My mom died of cancer when I was eight. Dad was . . .never quite the same after that. He started drinking too much, and when he was drunk he got . . .mean. I had a brother, ten years older than me, but he lit out of there pretty quick when things started going bad. Didn't hear from him again for a long time. I stuck it out until I finished school, and then I joined the army."

"And you haven't gone back since?"

"Actually, I went back just a few months ago," he said, wincing at the fresh memory. "But there was someone else living in the house. The store was gone too. I decided not to look any farther. The crew is my family now."

"They are a good crew," Mikhal said.

Eliot smiled. "They're the best."

They sat like that for a moment, enjoying their newfound trust. And then the song changed again, becoming a slow ballad by an artist Eliot didn't recognize. Mikhal squeezed his hand and said, "That's enough remembering. Dance with me."

He obligingly followed her on to the dance floor and wrapped his arms around her. It wasn't so much dancing as standing in one spot and swaying to the beat of the music, but that was nice too.

"Why the sudden change?" Eliot asked. "You've been playing the icy soldier ever since you got here. I was starting to think you didn't like me anymore."

She shrugged. "I wanted to be sure of things first. The last time we met, it was nice, but it was . . ." She paused, searching for the right word.

"An adrenaline fueled one night stand?" Eliot suggested.

She laughed. "Yes. B'diyuk. (_Exactly_.) But this time . . ." She brought her face close to his. "This time I wanted something different. Something more. I wanted to wait until there was time for us to talk so I could make sure you wanted the same thing. Do you?"

He brushed her hair back from her face and looked in to those deep, dark eyes. "Yes," he said. "I think I do."


	11. Chapter 11

Hardison raised an eyebrow when Eliot and Mikhal emerged from the bedroom together the next morning, but Eliot continued pretending not to notice, and the hacker rolled his eyes and went back to whatever he was doing on his laptop. Parker was perched on the kitchen counter, eating sugary cereal by the handful. She held out the box to Eliot and said, " 'ant 'ome?"

He shook his head. "No, thanks. I'd like real food. That hasn't had your sticky fingers in it. Honestly, Parker, have you never heard of dishes?"

She shrugged. " 'is 'as kicker. 'ishes afa be 'ashed."

"Yeah, not that you do wash them on the rare occasions that you use them. And don't talk with your mouth full." Eliot peered in to the fridge. "Want some eggs?" he asked Mikhal.

"Sure," she said, leaning languidly against the counter in a way that made him wish he hadn't been so quick to get out of bed.

"Any word from Jarret?" Eliot asked to distract himself as he took out eggs and a stick of butter.

"Not a peep yet," Hardison said. "But guess what a certain hard working, chronically unappreciated hacker was doin' while y'all were out partyin' last night?"

"Not getting over himself, I notice," Eliot said, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you just tell me what you've done so I can not appreciate it properly?"

"A'right, Mr. Grumpy. I _will_ tell you. _I _have spent seven hours recalibrating our comm frequency to precisely mimic the signal of Jarret's cell phone so that his signal jammer won't cut us off. That's what I've done." Hardison folded his arms triumphantly. "Well, go on, Eliot. Unappreciate _that_. You can't, can you? You're actually impressed."

"Unappreciate isn't a word," Eliot said, cracking an egg in to the hot frying pan.

"What do you mean it's not a word? Of course it's a word. What else would be the verb form of unappreciated?"

Mikhal who had watched the banter with amusement, turned to Parker. "Do they ever stop?" she asked.

Parker shook her head. " 'Oo get oostoo it."

"Wait a minute," Eliot said as he flipped the eggs. "Won't that mean Jarret's cell phone will pick up our comm traffic?"

"Already thought of that," Hardison said smugly. "It's not actually the same frequency. It's a spoof, close enough to fool the jammer but not so close that the wires get crossed. And since it mimics the _cell_ phone signal, it should also work for any jammers he has installed at the training camp." Once again he looked around expectantly for his laurels. "Well, go ahead. Gush about how you couldn't do without me, 'cause you couldn't and you know it. You can pretend all you want, Eliot, but we both know the truth."

Eliot's only response was to transfer the eggs to a plate and put it in front of Mikhal.

"Yeah, you're really impressed," Hardison said. "You're not just a little impressed. You're really impressed. I can tell. When you're just a little impressed, you get snarky. When you ignore me, you're really impressed."

"Hu chacham meod b'emet," (_He really is very smart,_) Mikhal said, taking a bite of her eggs.

"Ve'hu yodea oto," (_And he knows it,_) Eliot said. "Zeh ha'beaya." (_That's the problem_.)

"Oh, now y'all are gonna talk 'bout me in another language so I won't know what you're saying? That's just rude."

"How do you know it was about you?" Eliot challenged him. "Maybe she was just complimenting my cooking."

"Was she?"

"No."

"Was she saying something about me?"

"Yes."

"Ah ha!"

Eliot held up a finger. "But you didn't know that before. You just assumed."

Before another argument could start, Hardison's phone rang. Everyone froze and looked at it. It was Jarret. Hardison answered it on speaker. "Colonel Ruveni," he said, slipping in to his Israeli accent.

"Colonel, this is Tobias Jarret."

"Yes, Mr. Jarret. Good news, I hope."

"That depends."

The tension in the room was almost tangible.

"On what, Mr. Jarret?" Hardison asked.

"Oh how you answer my question, Colonel. I told you yesterday that I only do business with direct, honest people, so I'm going to give you one opportunity to prove that you are such a person. I have one question. It has one right answer. The true answer."

"And what is the question?"

Everyone was holding their breath. Parker's hand was frozen halfway out of the cereal box. This was the deciding moment. Their plan lived or died on Jarret's next words. And they were:

"Why is the Mossad working with a wanted felon like Mikhal Dayan?"

* * *

_I know this one was very short, but that was too good a cliffhanger to pass up. I'll try to post the next chapter quickly, but no promises. I've got a great plot twist coming, and I want to make sure it's perfectly executed. _


	12. Chapter 12

"Why is the Mossad working with a wanted felon like Mikhal Dayan?"

Parker punched the air triumphantly and scattered cereal on the floor. Eliot grabbed her arm before she could make an even worse mess by jumping off the counter and stepping on the brightly colored flakes, but he too was grinning. It had been risky sending Mikhal in to the initial meeting. She was well known in Jarret's circles, and he was certain to recognize her. There was no avoiding that. The question was, could they convince Jarret that she had actually returned to work for the Mossad, or would her presence tip him off to the scam. This was proof that they had passed their first hurdle. Jarret was following their script like a hound on the scent.

Hardison struggled to keep his tone sober as he replied. "She told me you would probably recognize her, but I thought we should at least try to maintain her cover. Our aim was not to lie to you, Mr. Jarret. We were simply trying to protect our agent."

"How long has she been your agent?" Jarret asked. "Did she ever actually leave your service?"

"I'm not at liberty to answer that," Hardison said. "And I'm going to have to insist that you don't share her true identity with anyone. As for her purpose on this project, she is here to evaluate your students."

"Evaluate them? How?"

"Well, Mr. Jarret, the students you consider the best may not be the best fit for our organization. Ms. Dayan will evaluate which of your students have the . . . capabilities we are looking for."

Eliot shook his head in wonder. The Alec Hardison he had met six years ago might have been able to make a string of computer code do a tango, but he could not have manipulated a human being so deftly. He had come a long way. They all had. Eliot glanced at Parker who once hadn't even been able to have a normal conversation, forget about the subtleties of grifting. And then he though about what he had been like before he joined this team. The soft voice coming through the phone made the memories more vivid. Too vivid. He knew that before this job was done he would have to come face to face with the man who had been his teacher and more a father than his real father had ever been. The man who had changed him from a fighter in to a killer.

"I'm going out to my training facility this afternoon," Jarret said. "Would you and Ms. Dayan like to accompany me for a preliminary tour?"

"That would be very agreeable," Hardison said. "We'll meet you at your offices at . . . thirteen hundred hours?"

"I'm looking forward to it."

Hardison ended the call and immediately let out a whoop of joy. "Yeah, baby! Can I lay a breadcrumb trail or what?"

"All right. Good work," Eliot said, "but that was only round one. Don't get too cocky."

"Ray of sunshine as always, Eliot," Hardison said sourly.

Eliot ignored him. An idea had been slowly forming in his mind since Hardison told him about the modified comms. He glanced at his watch. "We have four hours to prepare for the next stage," he said, "and we're going to improvise a bit. Hardison, now that you've found a way to beat the signal jammer, do you think you could get in to Jarret's computer?"

"Yeah, if I could get in to his office, but I'm supposed to go to the training camp with him. I can't be in two places at once."

"No, you can't." Eliot turned to Parker.

A grin immediately spread over her face. "Finally! I get to break in to his office and steal something?"

"Oh, you're going to steal something," Eliot told her, "but you're not going to break in. Do you think you can forge an Interpol search warrant?"

"In four hours? I could do that in twenty minutes. What am I stealing?"

Eliot smiled. "A rapist."


	13. Chapter 13

While Hardison and Parker worked on the forged search warrant, Eliot and Mikhal went over the layout of Jarret's training camp until they could both walk through it with their eyes shut. This was the stage at which things were most likely to go wrong in a spectacular way. If Mikhal was taken out of play, it would be up to Eliot to get Hardison out safely.

Mikhal finished drawing the map for the tenth time and put down her pen. "Something is worrying you, Bokar," she said. "What is it?"

"Seeing him again," Eliot said. "Talking to him."

"If things go right you won't have to," she pointed out.

He gave her a skeptical look. "And when do things ever go exactly right in this business?"

"Kimat af pa'am lo," (_Almost never,_) she said. "Achen. (_Granted._) Why are you so afraid of him though? You are the best fighter he ever trained, and you have gotten better since you left him. If anyone can defeat him, it is you."

"It's not fighting him that worries me," Eliot said, putting it in to words for the first time. "It's talking to him. He didn't just teach me to kill, Mikhal. He changed the way I saw the world. He convinced me that there were no good people, no such thing as innocence or loyalty. It wasn't until I met Nate Ford that I questioned that again. I'm afraid that . . .that if I have to look him in the eye, I'll forget everything I've learned since then."

Mikhal reached out and touched his hand. "I don't think you will."

He smiled weakly. "I appreciate your faith, but you don't know him as well as I do. He can be very convincing."

"And you can be very strong," she said. "You're a better fighter than him in every way. You'll be fine, Bokar. Trust me." She gave him a brief kiss and left the room.

While Eliot was still absorbing that, Hardison plopped down on the sofa next to him. "I know you don't wanna hear this," the hacker said, "but are you sure you know what you're doing? And don't you dare tell me it's none of my business."

Eliot sighed. "What if I say I don't know what you're talking about?"

"You're not gonna say that, 'cause that would be a lie, and you don't lie to me."

"You know, Hardison, if you don't trust her, we've got a much bigger problem than just you prying in to my love life."

"I can trust her to do her job and not sell us out. She's got a reputation to think of. That doesn't mean she won't break your heart. Look, I've seen your girlfriends come and go. Hell, most of them couldn't even be called girlfriends. Conquests might be a better-"

"Get to the point," Eliot said with a glare.

"Okay. The point is that this is different. You're actually falling in love with her, aren't you?"

Eliot had to think about that for a moment. _Was _he falling in love with Mikhal? It had been a long time since he'd been in love. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. What he had with Mikhal was very different from what he'd once had with Aimee, but there was no rule that love always had to be the same. Mikhal was a very different person from Aimee. He was a different person that he'd been back then. "So what if I am?" he said. "What's the problem?"

Hardison raised an eyebrow. "Well, for a start, what do you really know about her, Eliot?"

Eliot snorted. "You're not really going to use that argument. You of all people. What's Parker's given name again? How old is she?"

Hardison shook his head. "I'm not talking about facts and trivia. I mean, do you really know her? Do you know what makes her angry or happy or what she's scared of? Do you know anything about who she is, or are you just infatuated with her because she's the only woman you've ever met who can match you in a fight?"

"Yeah, that's part of it," Eliot said, "but you don't get it. She and I have similar skills because we've had similar lives. We're . . ." He looked at Hardison and decided to say it bluntly. "We're both killers."

"You used to be -" Hardison began.

Eliot cut him off. "That's not how it works, Hardison. Once . . .once you've had blood on your hands, it never leaves you. You're never the same again. You're never . . .clean again. You can stop killing, but you can never stop being a killer. I know you don't really understand that. I hope you never do, but that's the problem." He looked away for a moment, searching for the right words. "You want to know why I can't usually stay in a relationship?" he said. "It's because a good relationship requires both people to understand each other. Some of that's just about communication. You have to talk about things. But there are some things that can't be explained in words. You have to experience them to understand them. Mikhal and I understand each other in ways no one who hasn't done the things we've done ever could." He looked at Hardison again. The hacker was unusually silent and thoughtful. "So, yeah," Eliot finished. "I do know who she is. I know everything I need to. And if we pull off this job successfully, I'm going to ask her to stay."

"Stay?" Hardison said, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Stay," Eliot said. "On the team. Come on, Hardison. You've noticed how stretched we've been since Nate and Sophie left. We've managed, but we've had too many close calls. I can't be both mastermind and hitter. It's not safe. If I'm going to lead the team, someone else has to protect it."

"Yeah, but Mikhal Dayan ain't exactly a girl scout," Hardison pointed out. "She signed on for this job because of some sort of female solidarity thing, but she's not gonna want to do this regularly."

Eliot smiled. "She'll want to. Trust me. There's an old Hebrew proverb. 'Mitzva goreret mitzva.'"

"And what's that mean?" Hardison asked.

"Rough translation? Good deeds are addictive. We all noticed it when we started doing this. Oh, she'll spend a few months telling herself 'just one more'. But eventually . . ." Eliot smiled. "She won't be able to stop."


End file.
